Pharmacy in Ireland: 6 Programs, €12,000 Up

Start with the last row. The University of Galway's official course page states there are currently no places available to non-EU students for 2026/27. If you are Canadian or American, Galway is not a shortlist entry this cycle no matter how good a fit it looks — recheck it for the following year rather than applying.

RCSI's 2026 intake had already closed at the point this was audited, with the 2027 intake opening on 1 November 2026. That date is worth putting in a calendar now.

That leaves four realistically open programs for a non-EU applicant this cycle, and one of those — South East Technological University — publishes no confirmed non-EU fee, so you would be applying without knowing the price.

RCSI publishes €25,000 a year, which reads as the most expensive pharmacy program in Ireland. It also publishes an automatic €7,000 non-EU scholarship, which brings the real figure to €18,000 net.

That moves RCSI from the most expensive to the second cheapest — below Trinity and University College Cork, not above them. It is the only automatic, published scholarship of its kind in the Irish set, and reading the fee alone gets the ordering exactly backwards.

This is worth generalizing: a published fee is a starting figure, not a final one, and the caveats are on the same page as the number if you read to the bottom.

The Irish MPharm is a five-year integrated program, but two universities do not charge the same amount for all five.

Trinity's fifth year drops by €2,370. ATU's is charged separately as a postgraduate year, at an expected €8,000 to €11,000 — which means ATU's five-year total lands somewhere around €56,000 to €59,000 rather than a flat €60,000.

Neither is dramatic, but both mean the year-one figure understates or overstates the degree. Across the whole thing, ATU is roughly €56,000–€59,000, Trinity about €103,780, UCC €111,000 and RCSI about €90,000 after its scholarship.

Ireland has the highest modeled living costs of any country on this site, and for pharmacy that changes the ranking meaningfully.

Sligo is the cheapest complete first year by a wide margin — about €24,750, roughly €8,000 below anything in Dublin or Cork. ATU is both the cheapest tuition and in one of the cheaper Irish cities.

Living costs are modeled planning estimates per city, not quoted prices. Dublin's student housing market is genuinely tight and the modeled figure assumes you find something — build your own with the cost calculator.

Most Irish pharmacy deadlines run through the CAO on 1 February, which universities also use for direct non-EU applications. University College Cork is the exception at 1 March 2026, and RCSI runs its own cycle opening 1 November 2026 for 2027 entry.

Published entry requirements are thin here. Only two of the six publish exact requirements: Trinity asks for chemistry plus another specified science or mathematics subject with IELTS 6.5 overall and 6.0 in each component; University College Cork asks for H4 chemistry plus H4 physics or biology, with the same IELTS profile. The other four publish no exact requirement set, so expect to email.

That gap is normal rather than alarming — it is the pattern described in the programs that do not publish their requirements — but it does mean a Irish pharmacy shortlist needs more correspondence than a Polish medicine one.

Because apostilles and certified translations run four to eight weeks in sequence, start the document chain well before February rather than after — apostilles, translations and transcripts.

For a pharmacy degree more than any other, the route home should pick your country before the fee does.

The US FPGEC route screens on degree duration. A five-year integrated program clears a bar that a four-year degree does not, and every program in this guide runs five years or more. That is not incidental — it is the single biggest structural advantage continental European pharmacy has over the British four-year MPharm. The detail is in which pharmacy degrees clear the US rule.

For Canada, the PEBC route runs its own document evaluation and examinations regardless of where you studied. See pharmacy licensing in North America.

Verify your specific program and graduation year against the regulator before you enroll rather than after — how to verify a medical school covers the checks.